The UIQ associate comes through with a startling hour of sonics spanning styles and cultures.
The Budapest producer brings some “punch-drunk ambient techno” to Lee Gamble’s label with the incoming ZZM EP.
In an interview with FACT last year, Lee Gamble explained the name of his new label UIQ as representing an unearthly germ, relating to the hypothetical idea of panspermia (life on earth originating from an extraterrestrial source). Potential interaction with alien life is attached to a friend or foe anxiety, and with this in mind, Gamble noted he would “have to shut [UIQ] down if it’s terrible, or let it go if it’s OK.” Praise was heaped upon the first two outings on the label from N1L and ZULI that sounded fittingly otherworldly with their abstract productions landing somewhere in the black hole of genre indeterminism. Now it appears the response to each record has given Gamble confidence in the merit of his undertaking, or the OK-ness of it at least, as the once single-celled UIQ has been allowed to divide and grow with the emergence of the UIQ Inversions series dedicated solely to Lee Gamble productions.
Chain Kinematics kicks off the new UIQ Inversions series dedicated to Gamble’s own productions.
There was quite a buzz around Egypt’s electronic music scene a couple of years ago when John Doran wrote a series of stories for The Quietus about the electro chaabi scene. A documentary film was made, entitled Electro Shaabi, and a cultural exchange program Cairo Calling was coordinated by Rinse FM and the British Council to bring a crew of young Egyptian producers and MCs to London with their distinctive, hyped-up, MC-driven sound. Collaborations ensued with Mumdance, Pinch and others, both in London and Cairo, and although not much has been heard of the results of this project, it was certainly a landmark time for Egyptian electronic music in the international consciousness. Where electro chaabi is one sound that emanates from street level participation in a similar fashion to grime, Cairo is of course a city with many other dimensions to its culture.
The PAN artist will preview his new label endeavour with an evening of programmed music at Café OTO.